<\/p>\n
Gu Xiong-Towards\u00a0the Rivers<\/p>\n
Ni Kun<\/p>\n
I sit on stone
\nLooking across the water<\/p>\n
To the other shore
\nWanting to return home
\nI think I see it
\nBut I cannot reach it<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014Gu Xiong, I sit on stone\/2020<\/p>\n
\u201cGu Xiong: The River\u201d juxtaposes two ways of looking by establishing the parallel structures\u00a0of Gu Xiong, the living, individual artist, and the river, a larger symbol of life. His work has bridged different cultures for more than forty years,\u00a0which gives his vision a certain breadth. The intersection of multiple mediums, including poetry, prose, installation, photography, painting, and video,\u00a0gives this panorama of the artist\u2019s existence and circumstances dimension and richness, or it\u00a0offers an intense sense of medium and place.<\/p>\n
The exhibition showcases the work Gu made after he moved abroad in 1990, dealing with themes such as migration, identity, and the place of the individual in globalization. Unfamiliar cultural contexts, estrangement becoming commonplace, and the active construction of a new cultural identity\u00a0have long been the subjects of Gu\u2019s work. \u201cAll cultures are complex,\u201d he writes in his 1995 work Campfire.\u00a0\u201cIt [\u2026] fuels the change in both art and life. It is the conflict of cultures which has entered my work [\u2026] it is in a state of constant evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gu Xiong\u2019s reflections on cultural identity are confirmed\u00a0in his emphasis on a \u201ccomplex\u201d \u201cconflict of cultures.\u201d Life, emotion, and art are elevated to a key place. Expressing a new culture (and not assimilation) in a new context is the act in \u201cIdentity and Construction\u201d and the illustration of this merger. Salmon in a red space, flattened tableware\u00a0and soda cans, island cemeteries for Chinese laborers of the past,\u00a0family photos from different periods in Gu\u2019s life,\u00a0and of course, the whispers that accompany life\u2019s movement inform poems that record his different moods.\u00a0Therefore, this exhibition, which takes its name from the river, an important symbol in the artist\u2019s work, could be seen as an endless theater of life with poems as the monologues. Guided by the river, this theater carries the gaze through the cycles of time, life, and art. A migrating school of salmon swims silently. In this theater of life, there are no performances; all that is left is persistence.<\/p>\n
December 3, 2020<\/p>\n
Chongqing<\/p>\n
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